Ukrainian military shell downtown Slavyansk in eastern UkraineThe Voice of Russia

Kiev-controlled military units briefly shelled Slavyansk city center  in eastern Ukraine with heavy artillery, said Stella Khorosheva, spokeswoman for people’s mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said on Saturday in comments reported by Itar-Tass. “They have fallen silent now,” Khorosheva said. “They usually start shelling in the morning and evening. There are no data on destruction or those injured yet. Fire was send to the city center.”

Earlier a militia representative told Itar-Tass that the gun fire was from the Karachun Mountain. He said “intense fire from mortars and howitzers” lasted a few hours.

Continue reading “Ukrainian military shell downtown Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine”

Ukraine: New President to Pay Fighters 16 Times Average SalaryFarsnews

“In order to improve motivation and in accordance with oligarch Poroshenko’s election promise, the Kiev regime is increasing the pay for its fighters who see the antifascist and pro-Russian population as terrorists to 20,000 hrivnyi a month,” Makhail Koval said, Global Research reported.

“The amount corresponds to some USD 1,700, which, for Ukraine, is like golden (though bloody) rain. Average salaries are about $100 or so a month, and conscripted soldiers were paid half of that,” Koval noted.   Continue reading “Ukraine: New President to Pay Fighters 16 Times Average Salary”

(AFP Photo)RT News

The US has pledged to help the EU cut down its gas imports from Russia and diversify its energy supply during President Barack Obama’s visit to Europe next week, National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said.

The topics up for discussion during Obama’s visit – which is scheduled to take place June 2-6 – include US natural gas exports and the prospect of increasing US sales to the EU, according to the advisor.   Continue reading “US to work closely with EU to cut its Russian gas imports”

A farmer drives his combine harvester on a wheat field, Aug. 11, 2012, in Cassel, northern, France. File photo via AFP.Raw Story – by John Vidal, The Guardian

The world’s food supplies are at risk because farmland is becoming rapidly concentrated in the hands of wealthy elites and corporations, a study has found.

Small farmers, the UN says, grow 70% of the world’s food but a new analysis of government data suggests the land which they control is shrinking every year as mega-farms and plantations squeeze them onto less than 25% of the world’s available farmland, says international land-use group Grain. These mega-farms are less productive in terms of amount of food they produce per area of land, the report argues.   Continue reading “Corporations and wealthy elites now control more than 75 percent of the world’s farmland”

Blacklisted News – by Kelly Riddell, The Washington Times

A Massachusetts gun seller says it’s the latest victim of a federal multiagency task force that is squeezing financing sources for industries deemed “high-risk” by the Obama administration, such as porn stores, drug paraphernalia shops and gun merchants.

Powderhorn Outfitters, which sells firearms, archery gear and fishing equipment in Hyannis, Massachusetts, posted in an online forum this week that its longtime bank – TD Bank – had suddenly dropped its account.   Continue reading “Operation Choke Point Forces Bank To Dump Gun Store”

Common Dreams

FINLAND, Minn. – May 30 – The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today asked its million-plus members to call on Congress to reject efforts by the meat industry to weaken protections for farmers.

Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest factory farm producer of chicken, beef and pork is behind a proposed policy rider to the House Appropriations Committee’s 2015 spending bill. The rider would weaken rules, written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration (GIPSA). The rules are intended to protect contract farmers who raise animals for the four companies that control nearly all the meat eaten in the U.S. GIPSA is an agency of the USDA that writes the rules intended to promote “fair and competitive trading practices for the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture.” Continue reading “Organic Consumers Association Calls on Congress to Oppose the Tyson Foods Anti-Farmer Act”

purple plumesGeoEngineering Watch

The letter posted below just hit my desk. I have not yet had time to do any objective investigation but appears to be credible. Certainly it is a matter of time before more such fires begin to burn. As people from all professions realize they are going down with the ship and climate engineering is fueling the fire, they will join our critical cause. All of us need to make this fight our priority, every day matters.   Continue reading “Legal Wheels May Be Beginning To Turn In the FIght Against Geoengineering”

AFP Photo / Thomas SamsonRT News

Online computer hackers have infiltrated and exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans – nearly half of the US adult population – over the last year alone, according to an alarming new report.

The study – formulated by researchers at the Ponemon Institute, which measures data collection and information security in the public and private sectors – also determined that the number of hacked accounts belonging to those individuals numbered at or near 432 million.   Continue reading “Staggering figures: Half of all US adults hacked in last 12 months”

Yahoo News

ANNAPOLIS Md. (Reuters) – Maryland police early on Friday killed a 20-year-old man armed with a pellet gun that officers mistook for an assault rifle, a police spokeswoman said.

The officers had responded at about 2 a.m. EDT to a dispute between two men, one of them holding what officers thought was an assault rifle.   Continue reading “Maryland police mistake pellet gun for assault rifle, kill 20 year old man.”

DEA agents during the raid on the Purple Zone and the adjacent home. (Source: Tom Cochran)Police State USA

ALPINE, TX — Federal agents violently raided a tobacco shop, unnecessarily broke down a door, tampered with surveillance cameras, and allegedly cracked a woman in the neck with a rifle stock.  In the process, they also raided a neighbor’s home, only to later cover their tracks by acquiring a warrant retroactively.  The carnival of injustice was completed when witnesses were ordered to recant their stories under penalty of law.   Continue reading “DEA retroactively gets warrant after violent, botched raid on wrong address”

Alakhbar – by Suhaib Anjarini

The Turkish government recently cut off the flow of the Euphrates River, threatening primarily Syria but also Iraq with a major water crisis. Al-Akhbar found out that the water level in Lake Assad has dropped by about six meters, leaving millions of Syrians without drinking water.

Two weeks ago, the Turkish government once again intervened in the Syrian crisis. This time was different from anything it had attempted before and the repercussions of which may bring unprecedented catastrophes onto both Iraq and Syria.   Continue reading “A new Turkish aggression against Syria: Ankara suspends pumping Euphrates’ water”

Common Dreams – by Tom Engelhardt

Internet Class of 2014, I’m in awe of you! To this giant, darkened auditorium filled with sparkling screens of every sort, welcome!

It would, of course, be inaccurate to say, as speakers like me once did, that after four years of effort and experience you are now about to leave the hallowed halls of this campus and graduate into a new and adult world.  The odds are that you aren’t.  You were graduated into that world long ago.  I’m not sure that it qualifies as adult at all, but a new world it surely is, and one I grasp so little that I feel I should be in the audience and you up here doing what graduation speakers normally do: offering an upbeat, even inspirational, explanation of our world and your place in it.   Continue reading “The Big Brotherness of It All”

Slavyansk, Ukraine (RIA Novosti / Maks Vetrov) RT News

Kiev’s troops renewed the shelling of Slavyansk on Friday morning, residents told RT. A local children’s hospital and a clinic came under fire. There are no reports of injuries.

“This morning they hit the children’s policlinic in the center of the city and the reception ward of the children’s hospital. It was at 5 am,” Vladimir, a Slavyansk resident, told RT.   Continue reading “Shells hit hospital as Ukrainian army resumes strike on Slavyansk”

RINF

An independent board within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today ruled that a Medicare policy from 1989 that categorically excluded transition-related medical procedures, regardless of medical need, is unreasonable and invalid based on today’s medical science.

In response to this development, National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) Executive Director Mara Keisling issued the following statement:   Continue reading “Federal Board Overturns Medicare Exclusion of Transition-Related Care”